A confession of sorts, whispered Renee. Normally the men in our Arbeitslager aren’t allowed to see complete newspapers only selected articles which have been posted for all to read. Tell him this!
There is no need, mademoiselle. Your colonel understands.
‘Ach, newspapers were needed in order to make the papier-mache. I allowed Renee to bring whichever she wished from the office, since we get far too many, though there’s virtually nothing of value in any of them.’
‘The Kolnische Zeitung, Berliner Tageblatt and others, Colonel, the personals columns which those men must have avidly read and gradually found in them a further meaning.’
‘Mein Gott, how could I possibly have known? Never in my life have I bothered to read such trash!’
As Beate desires someone older, Inspector? Renee seemed to ask. Wouldn’t a vanity that is huge have caused him to peruse them in private?
Don’t deride him, mademoiselle. It will only hinder the investigation.
Then please ask him if he ever dipped those hands of his into the papier-mache. Ask if he ever helped me to make some of those missiles. Ask if the men, our now knowing that they had been making guncotton, would have laughed at the two of us behind our backs. Ask …
‘Colonel, when did you first begin to think that something must be wrong?’
Was this safer ground? ‘When Lowe Schrijen began to have that daughter of his followed.’
‘And when did you notice that this was happening?’
‘In mid-December. I saw them in the street outside one of the meetings the Fraulein Schrijen was addressing but they left in their car as soon as they noticed me. I’d gone there to ask Renee where she had put a file I needed. The girl came out of a nearby cafe and was flustered to find me there, but I thought no more of it. She’d been unsettled and definitely not herself since that skiing weekend at Natzweiler-Struthof. Victoria Bodicker had an arm locked in hers and was obviously keeping a very close eye on her. I … well, I didn’t pursue the matter.’
‘Had anything else happened to her while at the quarry, Colonel?’
Anything, thought Rasch, beyond witnessing the same hanging three times until successful. Sophie Schrijen must have told St-Cyr this, and if not her, then Victoria Bodicker. ‘Only a skiing accident. At least that is what she claimed. Personally I doubted it but felt it a private matter. The girl was an excellent skier.’
But does he now suspect what really happened to me, Inspector?
‘She had become engaged then, had she, Colonel?’
‘That didn’t happen formally until Christmas Eve.’
And three weeks of absolute terror over what Alain Schrijen must do, Inspector? Didn’t Sophie tell you and Victoria that I must have betrayed my true self and them too?
‘And after Christmas, Colonel?’
‘Look, I’m certain that boy must have found out what those three were up to. Perhaps the girl inadvertently said something while at Natzweiler-Struthof. Lowe Schrijen then started having his daughter followed. Renee was then murdered. How could I not have felt her death far from being a suicide? A devout Catholic? A girl who was gentle, kind and full of life? Mein Gott, everyone had a warm spot for her, myself especially.’
Ah, bon, mademoiselle, and yet another small confession on his part and reassurance that he could not possibly have had anything to do with your actual killing, though that still leaves us to deal with Herr Lutze, and certainly if you were to have lived, you would have been a distinct threat to them, since Herr Lutze and his colonel are virtually inseparable. ‘Thomas was then hanged …’
‘But you’ve not yet settled that, have you, even though he was condemned by his own men, only one of whom, other than Thomas, had a pass to the administration block. Raymond Maillotte, Inspector. The weakest link in that combine and one whose weakness, I must emphasize, Lagerfeldebel Dorsche knew of only too well and used.’
‘Hermann may have something.’
‘Then let’s hope that nothing has happened to him.’
‘Your detectives, Colonel …’
‘Believe me, neither of those two would have bothered to sit down with Renee to discuss a bauble. They’d have strung her up and gladly and could easily have got at Thomas if ordered to by Lowe Schrijen or that son of his.’
‘Yet you’ve not let us see their report.’
‘Because there is nothing in it but lies. It’s all a cover-up, and the smoother the better as far as Lowe Schrijen is concerned.’
‘Herr Oberdetektiv,’ interjected Lutze, ‘the Untersturmfuhrer Schrijen was well aware of how much Renee wanted to find the mate to that earring. Renee was always looking for such things. He would have known how pleased she would have been.’
‘And distracted,’ muttered Rasche, motioning Lutze to join them at the table. ‘Tell the Oberdetektiv about that boy’s last visit to the house.’
A cigarettte was offered and accepted, the colonel sliding his tobacco pouch and matches over to this Surete.
It was time to let St-Cyr know where things really stood, thought Lutze. ‘The Untersturmfuhrer came to take Renee to his father’s house in town on Christmas Eve, Inspector. He spoke of the biscuit tin they kept in one of those trunks here-she had shown it to him early in November when they’d all come out here for a picnic. He asked if she and Victoria or Sophie had found anything new to add to it. “A veritable treasure-trove, that tin,” he had said with a laugh. “If only those things were real, my sister could auction them off and would have no need of fixing anything for that fete she plans to hold.”’
It would have to be asked, ‘Had Alain Schrijen access to a means of drugging her, Colonel?’
If only the answer could be served on a platter. ‘They’ve plenty of ampoules at the quarry camp.’
‘Ampoules … Then we will have to have the autopsies done.’
‘And the others of that combine, Inspector?’ asked Rasche. ‘Will you then stand idly by when they are sent to that camp for reinforced interrogation?’
And what will they cry out? demanded Renee. That he had given them so much freedom they’d taken advantage of it?
‘There are ten of them being held in Straf, Inspector,’ said Werner Lutze. ‘The three who are left of the five who were released under guard to work here, and the rest of their combine.’
Those men would face certain death and St-Cyr knew it well enough, thought Rasche. ‘Find Kohler, mein Lieber. Look at things thoroughly but in the light of present realities.’
‘Suicides … Is it that you now wish us to say it definitely wasn’t murder?’
‘I want answers. Nothing else but the truth.’
‘And Lowe Schrijen, what will he do if it was his son, as you and Herr Lutze have tried to suggest, as has Sophie Schrijen?’
‘Believe me, Chief Inspector, Lowe will do whatever suits him best.’
The smokehouse was far from lonely but had been locked, its latch now solidly in place. Coughing came from inside, first from Herve Paulus, Kohler felt, and then from Serge Deiss.
‘Please don’t open it, Inspector,’ said Sophie Schrijen, stepping from the shadows to stand in moonlight. ‘I’ve only just closed it. I once locked my brother in there for a few minutes. He’d been spying on me, and for days afterward stank of wood smoke and complained of tears, but otherwise was fine. Vati will deal with them.’